I pay tribute here to John-Paul Dau, Alberta gold exploration manager and my guide to all things Cambodia from 2012 to about 2018.
I penned some memories here just now of J-P, who left us six months ago at age 46. [Please take a moment to view this, see J-P’s embracing family and understand why he was the subject of literally dozens of editions of our The Calandra Report.]
“I know J-P’s death shocked so many of us here at home,” Susan Dau, his mom, tells me just now from Alberta. J-P was diagnosed with a brain tumor several years ago and survived until March of this year.
J-P was, as The Calandra Report subscribers might recall, a country manager for Mike and Delayne Weeks’ Angkor Gold.
J-P in his profession was one of the best country managers I have seen on the ground (perhaps 12 Cambodia tours with J-P and the Weeks) — for Angkor Gold, now Angkor Resources.
He showed me the distinct culture of SE Asia and took our family and our friends into his family’s world in Banlung, in Phnom Penh. Throughout that self-effacing, poor and wonderful nation.
J-P’s motorcycles, his friends, his easy going and seeking spirit (as in, eat anything, including grilled ants and scorpions Khmer style) — his knowledge of the ground, the geography, the geology, the roads of the country, his favorite luscious and freshest roadside fruit and vegetable and lunch stands (mangoes!) — gifted us so many fabulous memories.
As TCRs, you know the geography, geology and exploration side of J-P and Angkor. Gosh knows I wrote it up countless times and spent many months on various Angkor properties and at the schools, hospitals, soccer camps and agricultural projects that Angkor and team set up there.
We ran some extraordinary medical and dental missions with J-P, the Weeks and the team and operated with the doctors and dentists I grew up with or used myself in NYC and here in California.
Remember the WOMEN IN HARDHATS tour? About 16 of us, 10 women friends of mine and my wife, Maura. Our two kids also spent a couple of stints in the country, coaching at a Banlung soccer camp or touring the Mekong River slums in Phnom Penh. Must mention, as gruesome as the visits were, tours of the S-21 school in PP, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, but back then just s-21, where the Khmer Rouge jailed, tortured and killed all but perhaps a dozen of their 20,000 urban captives.
Yes, I lost a good sum of money in Angkor, but the gold I gained was the friendship of J-P, of his wife, Vee Wathana Sok, the team at Banlung in NE Cambodia, the shop owners, the kids, the fellow geographers, geologists and engineers there.
J-P leaves his wife and best friend Vee Wathana Sok, their four children and his mom, Susan Dau. Plus siblings, cousins, in-laws, and a Colombia explorer, Epix Minerals, that his brother, Daniel, took over this year.
Not to end on that note, so:
J-P knew how to book on his bikes, motorized and mountain bikes, and the trucks that took us up to SE Cambodia and Ratanakiri Province‘s gold fields from Phnom Penh. Book, as in: when I first toured with J-P and his team, the drive to Banlung from the city took about 7 hours. He whittled that down, safely, and never driving at night, to 5 or so hours (not counting roadside stops and points of interest along the way).
R.I.(J-)P John-Paul. More here.
— Thom Calandra
Thom Calandra is a writer and an investor. Research and material are meant as editorial opinion. He is not a professional investment adviser. Please do not consider his reporting as a recommendation to buy or sell securities.